“Soult confessed to me that he had conceived a sincere regard for the King, so much did he admire his government; and he would not return to my service until after the Champ de Mai.
“Macdonald never made his appearance, and the Duke of Belluno followed the King to Ghent. Thus,” said he, “if the Bourbons have reason to complain of the complete desertion of the soldiers and the people, they certainly have no right to reproach with infidelity the chiefs of the army, those pupils or even leaders of the Revolution, who, in spite of twenty-five years’ experience, proved themselves, in this instance, mere children in politics. They could neither be looked upon as emigrants nor patriots!”
Napoleon seemed instinctively attached to his grand principle of acting only on masses and by masses. Both at the commencement of the enterprise, and after his landing in France, he was repeatedly urged to treat with some of the authorities, but he constantly returned the same excellent answer: “If I still hold a place in the hearts of the people, I need concern myself but little about persons in authority, and if I could only rely on the latter, what service could they render me in opposing the great mass?”
The following fact will shew how little communication Napoleon had maintained with the capital. On the morning of his entry into Paris, after his return from the Isle of Elba, a hundred and fifty half-pay officers quitted St. Denis, where they had been stationed by the Princes, and marched to the capital, bringing with them four pieces of artillery. They were met on the road by some generals, who placed themselves at their head; and the little troop thus proceeded to the palace of the Tuileries, where they assembled together the heads of the different departments of the ministry, who all agreed to act in the name of the Emperor. Thus Paris was tranquilly governed that day by the torrent of opinion and the transport of private affections. None of the great partisans of the Emperor, none of his former ministers, having received any communication from him, dared sign an order, or assume any responsibility. The public papers would not have appeared next day but for the zeal of private individuals, who, spontaneously and without authority, filled them with expressions of the feelings[feelings] by which they were animated, and with the statements of passing events. In the same manner Lavalette took possession of the post-office. Paris was that day without police and without government, and yet never did greater tranquillity prevail in the capital.
The Emperor entered the Tuileries about nine o’clock in the evening, with an escort of a hundred horse, just as if he had come from one of his country residences. On alighting, he was almost squeezed to death by a crowd of military officers and citizens, who thronged around him, and fairly carried him in their arms into his saloon. Here he found dinner ready, and he was just sitting down to table, when the officer who had been despatched in the morning to Vincennes to summon the fortress, arrived. He brought intelligence of the capitulation of the commandant, whose only conditions were, that he should receive a passport for himself and his family.
It is a very singular circumstance that, on the morning after the Emperor’s arrival at the Tuileries, while a messenger had gone out to procure a tri-coloured flag, one was found at the pavilion Marsan, during the search that was made, as a matter of prudence, through the palace. This flag was immediately hoisted. It was quite new, and larger than the usual size. No one could guess how it had got into the Tuileries, and for what purpose it had been intended.
In fact, the more light there is thrown on the subject, the more evident it must be that there was no other conspiracy than that of the nature of things. Party-spirit alone can seek in the present age to raise a doubt on this point; history will have none.
THE RETURN FROM ELBA.
London: Published for Henry Colburn, December, 1835.
A few days after Napoleon’s removal to Longwood, his return from Elba became the subject of conversation among the officers who were presented to him, when one of them observed that that astonishing event presented to the eyes of Europe the contrast of all that was most feeble and most sublime, the Bourbons abandoning[abandoning] a monarchy, and flying on the approach of a single man, who by his own individual efforts boldly undertook the conquest of an empire. “Sir,” said the Emperor, “are mistaken, you have taken a wrong view of the matter. The Bourbons were not wanting in courage; they did all they could. The Count d’Artois flew to Lyons; the Duchess d’Angoulême proved herself an amazon in Bourdeaux, and the Duke d’Angoulême offered as much resistance as he could. If, in spite of all this, they could attain no satisfactory object, the fault must not be attributed to them, but to the force of circumstances. The Bourbons, individually, could do no more than they really did; the contagion had spread in every direction.”